Nonlinear valley Hall effect in a bilayer transition metal dichalcogenide
Phys. Rev. B 112, 045432 – Published 31 July, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/fs39-vgq6
Abstract
Valley-contrasting Hall transport conventionally relies on the inversion symmetry breaking in two-dimensional systems, which greatly limits the selection range of valley materials. In particular, while monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides have been widely utilized as a well-known class of valley materials in valleytronics, the centrosymmetric nature hinders the realization of valley-contrasting properties in the bilayer counterparts. Here, taking as an example, we discover valley-contrasting transport in bilayer transition metal dichalcogenides by exploring a nonlinear transport regime. Using effective models and first-principles calculations, our work demonstrates that nonvanishing nonlinear valley Hall conductivities emerge in a uniaxially strained bilayer, owing to strain-induced band tilts of Dirac fermions. Compared with the valence bands, the conduction bands have smaller spin-orbit-coupling-induced band splittings and correspondingly they generate much more remarkable nonlinear valley Hall conductivity. Moreover, the nonlinear conductivities are highly tunable through modulating the strength and the direction of the strain, chemical potential, and interlayer gap. Our findings not only expand material choices for valleytronic applications, but also provides opportunities for designing advanced electronic devices that leverage nonlinear valley transports.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Corrections
29 August, 2025
Correction: A formatting error introduced during the production process resulted in the author surnames to be displayed incorrectly in Ref. [28] and have been fixed. A typographical error in Ref. [28] has been corrected.